Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Teething and Earaches and RSV...OH MY!

Let the post title explain why I haven't written in a while!

We were supposed to take our first plane ride with Emma to San Francisco for our friend's wedding.......instead we spent two days at the doctor and ended up with nebulizer treatments every 4 hours and amoxicilin doses twice a day.

Emma got sent home from school on Wednesday because she was just miserable and had a 99.7 fever. She teething we teeth 5 and 6, so I didn't think it was that weird. By 6 pm her temp was up to 102.8 and I felt like she was breathing very quickly, so I was in FREAKOUT MODE! We scheduled a doctor appt for the next day and it turned out she had an ear infection and tested positive for RSV.

To make a long story shorter, RSV is a respiratory virus that builds up mucus quickly in the lungs and can make it hard to breathe. When the doctor told me I had to take her straight the ER if her breathing was more than 60 times a minute my heart sank. Especially since it was at 50 when we got to the doctor. We tried a nebulizer at the doctor's office to see if that would help and it did...heart rate down to 43. So that was our plan of action. Also when the doctor said we had to come back the next day, I knew it was serious.

I think I counted Emma's heart rate about 60 times in that 24 hours. I also had her sleep right next to me for most of the night. Here is an example of our night:

1:50am - Wake up and prepare nebulizer treatment

2:00am - Try to give it to Emma while she is sleeping, but it wakes her up every time and give her the treatment which she cries at, because we are sticking a tube/facemask in her face that is billowing out steam/smoke/whoknowswhat

2:20am - Finish the treatment and try and get Emma back to sleep

3:00am - Try and fall back asleep myself and DH

5:50am - REPEAT!

So the next day the doctor said she definitely didn't look worse and her heartrate was down a little. She decided to give us 2 weeks until she wanted to see her again with giving her nebulizer treatments every 4 hours and we could use our own judgement to slow the treatment times. We also didn't have to give her treatments through the night if she didn't wake up! (thank god).

Friday and Saturday and Sunday, instead of walking around in 70 degree weather in sunny San Fran, we were pretty much taking care of a very sick and miserable little angel. (I'm allowed to be disappointed)

*She is cute though

Monday Emma seemed to be turning towards the better so we bundled her up and took her for a nice long walk outside. I was taught that fresh air can always do a body good. I'd pretty much do anything to make Emma feel better though.

Last night Emma slept 12 hours and as far as I am aware didn't wake up once because of coughing. We sent her off to school today (THANK THE LORD JESUS!) and low and behold all of her teachers are now sick (gonna blame Emma for that one).

Still giving her treatments before and after school, but I can only pray we are heading towards the end of this nightmare.

A couple of times over the past 5 days I've come to the end of my rope, thrown my hands in the air and said "I NEED A BREAK" Fortunately DH was there every time to give me one! We make a pretty good team.